I sometimes romanticize the idea of being a "power user," someone who can get done in one click things that would take everyone else five or six. But that status often comes with a lot of time spent setting up apps and scripts, which often require very specific knowledge. That's why services like If This Then That (IFTTT) are great — they make being a power user accessible by mixing customizable functionality with a passionate community and an easy-to-use interface.
New to iOS devices today, however, is an app called Workflow. It takes the approachability of IFTTT and tries to one-up it with a colorful drag-and-drop interface. Unlike IFTTT, which essentially can only program two parts to each "recipe," Workflow lets you program seemingly endless chains of instructions that can do everything from simple actions like "tweet what song you're playing" to gathering the addresses of all of your day's meetings in an email.
Compatibility is important when it comes to apps like this, and Workflow already works with a few key ones like Venmo and Dropbox. But the best thing Workflow has going for it is its integration with iOS. You can take your favorite shortcuts and add them to the homescreen or — even better — apply action on a specific file in another app via the share sheet button.
the best thing Workflow has going for it is its integration with iOS
I spent a few hours diving into what Workflow already has to offer, as well as trying to come up with my own concoctions. Some of the existing shortcuts that Workflow features in the "Gallery" (the name for the app's marketplace) are already pretty great, like being able to batch-airdrop recent screenshots taken on your phone, quickly make and tweet into a GIF, or being able to summon an Uber to the next event on your calendar.
All of these are started with one tap, but they will sometimes prompt you for more information as the action is working through the steps involved. Workflows downloaded from Gallery can be tweaked to your liking, all you have to do is open one up and you can add or remove steps, or change the values of each. That's also a good way to get started with the app — just take one that works and see what else you can add until it breaks the process.
But the real fun comes in trying to create your own workflows. Want to set up an action that lets you call your mom while also requesting money from her on Venmo all with one button press? Done. How about the ability to AirDrop the "You're Fired!" memo from Back to the Future II while simultaneously printing it on all nearby (AirPrint-enabled) printers? Easy. the real fun comes in trying to create your own workflows
It goes deeper, too. With only a half-hour of familiarity I was able to set up a workflow that can find the locations of meetings I might have on any given day, pull images of the buildings they're in from Google Street View, and email them all to me. The app can call on over 150 actions, which can be a little overwhelming at first, but it's worth taking the time to explore them all. It can even let you script actions bit by bit if you wish, but that leads to one of its biggest problems — it needs to do a better job of telling you where and why things are going wrong when a workflow doesn't work. When a workflow breaks, the action typically just stops, and even when an error dialogue does pop up it doesn't necessarily nudge you in the right direction.
Workflow will be even better with a robust community behind it
It's clear the team behind Workflow wants to foster a community around it that creates and shares great ideas. But it's not obvious how easy it will be interface with all of that. Right now, the Gallery is too simple, and reminds me a lot of what I don't like about Pebble's app marketplace. Different workflows are separated into categories, but it's hard to tell if you're actually seeing all there is to see in any given one. And unlike IFTTT, there isn't a web interface, which could allow for more granular searching.
Hopefully those things will develop as more people find out about the app, because it's already very capable. As clever as we all like to think we are, it never hurts to have experts setting a high bar. Until then, I'll be buried in my phone, trying to set better workflows for requesting money for tacos.
Workflow is available in the App Store for $2.99.
Ooooh daddy like! IFTTT is wonderful so more of that goodness is welcome. Is Android on the horizon?
Windows ph… oh nevermind.
Android as tasker, secure settings, llama . . . list goes on
I have both apps, and they are really not the same experience at all.
Workflow is much more user friendly, and the ability to browse and share your Workflow is tightly integrated into the app itself.
I did not enjoy Tasker. Seemed overly complicated at first blush.
Really am liking it so far. I’ve only built a workflow that just takes my Markdown and saves it as rich text and then HTML that goes to iCloud Drive though.
This is probably the most useful examples out of the ones mentioned in the article.
While I was reading it I was waiting for one good one but nope!
Yeah, I think we’re going to see a lot of workflows that are very niche. But whatever, it’s for us to make it our own.
Automator for iPhone.
Wow this app is amazing. I’ve been playing with it for the last half hour and there are endless things that you can do. And its actually cheap without that crap subscription based thing that is usual this days. Totally worth it.
This looks really cool, is there anything similar for OSX?
Automator and it’s already installed!
Neat, thanks! Will take a look.
But does it work with my Hue lights?
Doesn’t look like it does yet.
Right now I have to manually import books from Dropbox into iBooks, because there is no sensible way to do a batch import from OS X iBooks or iTunes onto my iPad.
…and before you provide a solution, I do not want to auto-sync my OSX / iOS iTunes books because for some incomprehensible reason that requires me to auto-sync music as well, you can’t just do book auto-sync…
Does anyone know if it would be possible to batch import epubs from iOS Dropbox into iOS iBooks with Workflow?
There’s a Dropbox picker, and a iBooks opener action. But I think you need to manually pick the file from dropbox. I don’t think there is a way to pick all files in a folder, etc. This might save you some time but it’s not completely automated yet. But their support team is very quick to answer questions and requests so that seems like a reasonable thing to ask for.